Rob Pursey (Heavenly, Swansea Sound, the Catenary Wires, Skep Wax Records) on his favorite band T-shirts of 2025
Band T-shirts are pretty much the only clothes I buy these days, apart from when essential items completely wear out and have to be replaced. There are many advantages to buying band T-shirts, and here are some of them:
-you can usually get them at gigs, which means you don’t ever have to visit clothes shops.
– the bands benefit, as the sale of one T shirt is worth about 6 billion streams of their songs on S p o t I f y. (By the same token, T shirt sales don’t help finance AI-based warfare.)
– socially, you might be at an advantage wearing a band T shirt, because other people who like the same band might talk to you. Actually, they probably won’t talk to you, because that would be awkward. But some kind of unspoken solidarity might hover in the air.
For me, the main advantage is that I do really love these shirts. Each one has memories embedded in its fabric. They are like diary entries, reminding you of something you don’t want to forget.
So here are my favourite band t-shirts of 2025. Most of them were acquired over the last twelve months but there are a few older specimens in there too.
HARD SKIN. I bought this at the Hard Skin Ladies Night a couple of weeks ago, where a dozen punk-adjacent women joined London’s finest Oi band on stage for a thrilling and raucous hour. Sean, the lead singer, had taken refuge at the merch stall at the end of the gig and sold me the shirt before being dragged back to the stage for a stupendous encore of ‘If The Kids Are United’.
THE MAGNETIC FIELDS. This might be my oldest band T shirt. I bought it when ‘69 Love Songs’ first came out, and I wore it again this year when Stephin and his group came back to London and played the songs from the album all over again. I’ve worn the shirt on my many occasions in between these two significant dates, and I have to give credit to the band for making such a durable garment. The only negative thing about this shirt is that it’s an ‘L’. The modern 69 Love Songs shirt that I bought more recently is an ‘XL’. The old shirt reminds me that I should have eaten less over the last 25 years.
TULLYCRAFT. I got this shirt when Heavenly and Swansea Sound played with Tullycraft in their hometown of Seattle. They hadn’t played for ages: I guess we infected them with the idea that there is no reason not to resurrect your old band, even if it seems a little undignified. And of course, they were brilliant. And they were dignified. Their songs are timeless, and so is this T shirt.
HOMESPUN FESTIVAL. I was given this shirt by Bob (Swansea Sound), who had helped organise this DIY festival in Rochester, Kent back in 2016. The shirt is actually about ten years old. Bob had stowed the merch away somewhere and only recently re-discovered it in a box in his attic and let me have a couple of the shirts. The Catenary Wires had played the festival, along with bands like The Claim, Pete Astor and Bob himself. Back then, me and Amelia shared a stage with loads of people who we didn’t really know at the time, but who would later turn out to be very good friends. That’s quite a nice story for a T shirt to tell.
RAMSGATE MUSIC HALL. My favourite venue in Kent, actually my favourite venue in the whole of the UK, makes a new shirt each year to raise funds. I can’t remember who designed this one – they have a different guest designer each year. But I like the idea that by wearing it I am making a tiny contribution to the maintenance of the Music Hall. Like most independent venues, it’s run on a shoestring and driven by a genuine love of live music. Without it, people in Kent would be much, much poorer.
WASTED YOUTH. This is my most fraudulent T shirt. I loved this band when I was very young. Their two early singles ‘I’ll Remember You’ and Jealousy’ were two of my favourites. If you like the Only Ones and are quite interested in Bauhuas but could live without their Gothic affectations, I recommend Wasted Youth. Anyway, they played this year at The Ramsgate Music Hall. I couldn’t go, because we were playing a show on the same night. But kind Al, who did sound at the Music Hall, got the shirt for me. So yeah, a bit fraudulent, but I do love it.
TULPA. We put this band’s debut album out in the Autumn of this year. Have you heard them? If not, you should. How can I describe them? Imagine if Dinosaur Jr decided to record pop songs with a female lead vocalist… Something like that. Anyway, it’s been great to get to know Josie, Dan, Mike and Myles and to hear their wonderful music. The sleeve design and the shirts they made were all pretty marvellous too, and here’s a picture of Amelia wearing her shirt. Mine is currently in the wash, so I can’t wear it right now.
THE LINDA LINDAS. We became friends with this band because of T shirts. When The Linda Lindas first started they asked if they could adapt the Heavenly ‘Attagirl’ design to make shirts that they were printing to raise money for a local charity. We said yeah sure, not expecting them to become a world-conquering indie rock band. We’ve now got into a bit of a rhythm with them, where we do occasional T-shirt swaps. That’s how they came to be wearing Riot Twee shirts, and that’s how I came to have my own Linda Lindas shirt.
THE CORDS. This wonderful band have made a big impact on us in 2025. Their debut album, as everyone knows, is a total delight. The band, along with their Mum and Dad (Lou and Marc) have become close friends after we spent a wonderful week travelling round England with them on their first headline tour south of the border. Marc gave me this shirt. Like all The Cords merch, it’s a lovely piece of design, and I am proud to wear it.
SASSYHIYA. If you have heard the Sassyhiya track ‘Crayon Potato’ you will know that Helen and Kathy, Sassyhiya’s songwriters, are very much in love with their cat, Crayon. Not content with writing a very good song about him, they also made a T Shirt that celebrates his furry existence. He is a magnificent beast. I haven’t encountered him in real life and maybe that’s a good thing: it’s never wise to meet your heroes. The song and the shirt will have to suffice. This picture was taken at the Skep Wax Weekender back in July, where me and Helen effected a T shirt swap. A nice memento of a great weekend.